Tony Katz

The numbers around coronavirus in America have been sensationalized to the point of making Americans near de-sensitized. And with those numbers comes continued politicizing of policy, and demands for a national response. But the data we have shows that a One-Size-Fits-All policy doesn’t work for America.

Models show us horrific death rates, and incomprehensible infection rates. Then, models show us much smaller rates of death and infection. What are we to trust? Researcher Neill Ferguson from Imperial College in London said deaths in the UK would top 500,000 and would be over 2 million in the United States. Politicos and pundits ran with those numbers, pushing fear and the need for national lockdowns.

A week or so later? Ferguson revised his numbers, claiming deaths in the UK would be somewhere around 20,000. The reason, he stated, was social distancing.

Just one problem with that, as was noted by former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson. At the time of Ferguson’s revision, the lock down in the UK had only been in effect for two days. Also, a revision from 500K to 20K is not a revision. It’s an admission that your first numbers were simply wrong.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said there could be between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the United States. The White House took these numbers seriously, and used them to devise their policies of shutdowns and social distancing. Recently, the IHME revised their models. Now, they say 60,000 to 124,000 people might die.

Yes, they cut their numbers in half. Supporters claim that it proves social distancing works. Others note, rightfully so, that social distancing was incorporated into their initial numbers:

In the world of coronavirus, essential businesses are considered those – and this is a very general definition – that allow Americas to survive. The businesses that sell food or medicine or the ability to keep a roof over your head, and the businesses that supply those businesses, those are considered essential. But some of them, from WalMart to Target to Meijer, also sell clothes…and books…and sunglasses…and a myriad of items that aren’t considered essential.

Howard County, Indiana has decided to force those businesses to stop selling those “non-essential” goods. Translation: Social Distancing doesn’t matter when you’re buying eggs or cereal. Social Distancing is the law if you want to buy your kids a coloring book.

In a Facebook post explaining their decision, the county Board of Commissioners claim the issue is Howard County residents who are gathering at these stores. As written in the order, the Board claims store employees are saying people are shopping because they are, “bored at home” and they, “buy only non-essential goods.” From the Board of Commissioners:

This is not fair to businesses that have closed in compliance with the county’s order….Obviously (having people congregate in businesses,) this is not in keeping with the crucial need to practice social distancing and to limit social gatherings.

The order from the county applies to goods including: jewelry, furniture, home and lawn decor, toys/games, carpet/rugs/flooring, non-emergency appliances, music/books/magazines, craft and art supplies, paint, entertainment electronics

The problem here is that the Social Distancing doctrine is applied unequally, and shows again why the nation-wide approach of shutting down business was more overreaction than logic and science.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar are out of the race for the Democratic nomination, and they have publicly endorsed former VP Joe Biden, even campaigning with him in Dallas. The conventional wisdom now is that if Pete and Amy are endorsing Biden, Pete and Amy supporters will vote for Biden.

But why? The conventional wisdom is no match for the messages, styles and policies of the candidates themselves. When those metrics are the barometer, Pete and Amy voters don’t move to Biden. They move to Elizabeth Warren.

At this stage, no one is serious about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s status as a contender. She has underperformed, well, everywhere. But considering I’ve bet money on a contested convention in Milwaukee, I don’t begrudge her staying in the race. She thinks the same about the convention, and her campaign has put out a memo outlining this position, referring to it as the, “final play.”

This means, delegates or not, that Warren is an option for voters. Amy and Pete voters might take notice.

Buttigieg supports Medicare for All….who want it. The difference between his plan and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plan is nil. Buttigieg admitted this himself, saying if insurers could not figure out how to operate in his new scheme, they will fail. He followed up by saying, “And honestly, I don’t care.”

Buttigieg, just like Bernie, spent much of his campaign attacking and insulting police officers, both in South Bend and across the nation. He has spoken often about “systemic racism” and abusive cops. Sanders says the same.

But Buttigieg supporters think Bernie is “too radical.” Clearly, it’s not about substance with these voters, but about style. They want the policies -the substance – but they also want a style that isn’t screaming and yelling and aggressively pointing at them every second. If the mix of substance and style is what Buttigieg supporters are looking for – far-left policies, delivered without screaming – then that’s not Joe Biden. That’s Elizabeth Warren.

Klobuchar got the endorsement from the New York Times. They called her a woman of, “…charisma, grit and stick-to-itiveness .” She holds many far-left ideals, including being a sponsor of the Green New Deal and supporting Cap and Trade. But she shares those views without the over-the-top passion plays of fellow Leftists. She is seen as the pragmatist of the group; someone who is grounded, and who will explain her position in plain English.

Her policies line up with Biden on healthcare, where both support a “public option” and a return to Obamacare. And she aligns with Biden and Bernie on the Green New Deal. (Bernie supports the Green New Deal, but not Cap and Trade.) But who would call Bernie a pragmatist? Who would call Biden grounded? Support for Klobuchar meant, again, that supporters were searching for a mix of style and substance. That they agree with Bernie on policy does not mean that they find him agreeable.

Enter Elizabeth Warren. She also received the endorsement of the New York Times. (Sure, there was a serious element of “woke” in the endorsement, but what isn’t woke these days from the New York Times?) Warren supports the Green New Deal and Cap and Trade. Warren does favor Medicare for All, but she also focuses on being a woman candidate. Doesn’t “diversity” count for anything anymore in the Democratic party?

After her poor showing in the New Hampshire primary, Warren spoke highly of Sen. Klobuchar, saying, ” I also want to congratulate my friend and colleague Amy Klobuchar for showing just how wrong the pundits can be when they count a woman out.”

Klobuchar supporters have already showed they are comfortable with a woman on top of the ticket. So why, after the similarities and the kindnesses, would one assume that Klobuchar supporters would move to Joe Biden?

Klobuchar supporters have shown they want someone who can clearly communicate with them, who can explain ideas and policies instead of yelling at them or America. Biden is a man, who yells, who does get the facts wrong, who can’t remember what’s in the Declaration of Independence, who brings gaffe after gaffe after embarrassing, incoherent, what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-this-guy-oh-my-gosh-is-he-smelling-me gaffe!

Biden may be part of the two man race, but Warren is the woman who most encapsulates the wants and desires of Pete and Amy voters: calm, focused, has a plan, politically far left, “diverse” and not afraid to take on President Donald Trump.

Conventional wisdom says Biden picks up the Pete and Amy support, but this wisdom is based on everyone falling in line with the Democratic establishment’s desire to stop Sen. Sanders cold. Some might want just that. But many Pete and Amy supporters like Bernie’s policies, and they like his fighting spirit; what they don’t like is his style. The candidate that most resembles Bernie’s policies but Pete and Amy’s style is not Joe Biden, it’s Elizabeth Warren.

It gets done all the time: Comparisons to Hitler and Nazis from people who can’t figure out how to express their disagreement with others, so they resort to the lowest common denominator, gaining themselves a moment of moral superiority while denigrating and diminishing the attempted extermination of an entire people.

Comparisons to Nazis are the standard trope from anti-intellectual talking heads who want to engage the bastardization of history to shore up their woke position. Better said – this is what low-brow people do when they want to seem important. It’s what Tom Steyer did. It’s what Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did. It’s what luddites like Ana Navarro have done. The Nazi comparison has become the de-facto crutch for slow-witted individuals who only ever read the Cliff Notes summary of WWII, or, really, any history at all.

And it’s not that Nazism nor Nazis nor even Hitler are off limits. Certainly, the Nazis were socialists – The National Socialist German Workers Party, to be exact. And that Sen. Sanders is a “democratic socialist” could lead to many questions.

But making a comparison to Nazis is not actually what Chris Matthews did. Matthews point seems to be that the Democratic Party doesn’t understand that they’ve lost to Bernie; that he has a clear path to the nomination. That, I believe, was his commentary, based on the video I’ve seen.

Was it clumsy? Perhaps. Was it totally unnecessary? Probably, if not completely. Was it seized (pounced?) upon by the same anti-intellectual mob that proudly uses the attack to go after President Trump whenever they can? Yes.

But since there was no call for Steyer to not run, Rep. Ocasio Cortez to resign nor Ana Navarro to be fired, forgive me if I don’t join the mob of dunces who can’t tell the difference between pure insult and potentially questionable commentary. I’m no fan of Chris Matthews in the main, but I’m far less a fan of actual fanatics who want blood because they aren’t perspicacious enough to draw distinctions.

Tony joined Pete Hegset, Lisa Boothe and Griff Jenkins to talk about Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “true believers,” like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Michael Moore, who are committed to the 79 year-old based on his progressive policies. Will his supporters vote for anyone else?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren gets an unbelievable endorsement from the Des Moines Register ahead of Iowa. They say that her polices are not “radical. They’re right.” Tony discusses these subjects, the addition of Michael Bloomberg and how the primaries are shaping up.

Tony Katz ranks the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates who have dropped out of the race. And Michael Moore says President Trump’s base still supports him. As Tony points out, that’s only half the story.

Maybe it’s that he peaked too early in Iowa. The touted Iowa State University poll had him in a solid first place with 26%. The latest poll, from Emerson, has him at 18% in the state. Nationally, he has been flirting with the top three. In the latest FOX News poll, he’s at 7%, and the Real Clear Politics average has him back in single digits, at 9.5%.

Maybe it’s his inability to connect with black voters. Yes, he has serious problems in South Carolina, but his issues with black voters track back his time as mayor of South Bend, IN. His demotion of a black police chief (which he still has not fully explained to any level of acceptableness,) how he handled a police-involved shooting where he was unresponsive to citizens and threw the South Bend policeunder the bus.

Even the campaign’s ham-fisted attempt to show black support was interrupted by a protest from Black Lives Matter. To be clear, the BLM protesters were wrong, and disrupting events the way they do is indecent if not totally predictable and boring. Back to the event, Buttigieg is trying desperately to build up his base of black voters; without them, you can’t win the Democratic nomination. He even put out his Douglass Plan to revitalize black America, and he claimed there were 400 endorsers of his plan in South Carolina.

South Bend, Indiana Democratic Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the front runner in Iowa. And in a race where you could have four different winners before Super Tuesday on March 3rd – with no consensus candidate in sight! – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina take on even more significance.

Buttigieg is getting dinged for his work at consulting firm McKinsey. McKinsey is one of those firms that signifies and symbolizes the ‘elite’ and the ‘DC Swamp.’ And even if one were to argue both of those examples, it certainly represents the idea of the insider. This goes against the image Buttigieg has been desperate to push out: Industrial Midwest Mayor who speaks for the forgotten and ignored with Millennial cool while sporting a boyish grin and a first-day-on-the-job-Supercuts hairdo.

But it all falls apart when you realize that he’s an insider at his core.

The Midwest decided the election in 2016. It was the Indiana primary that clearly stated that outside voices were worth hearing, and Hoosiers voted for Donald Trump over then-candidate Sen. Ted Cruz. In the presidential election, it was Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that let their voices be heard: Trump over Hillary.

Now that impeachment is upon America heading into the 2020 election, what does the Midwest have to say? This must be a consideration for Democrats and Republicans alike: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio may very well determine the presidency. And Indiana, with it’s May 5th primary, may become a major battleground if no candidate can gain a consensus coming out of Super Tuesday (and it’s looking this way more and more.)

Here’s what the Midwest is saying: Stop talking impeachment and start listening to us! The polling may show America and these swing states are split on impeachment, but the people speaking out are saying they want their lives made better, and they don’t care about partisan narratives.

Wisconsin:

A Marquette University poll shows 51% of respondents do not want impeachment. While national polls are showing more of a 50/50 split on impeachment, Wisconsin is more opposed. And Wisconsin determined 2016 results, a fact that Democrats are more than aware of. 41% say the economy has gotten better. 63% want government doing more for small farmers, which puts more pressure on Democrats to pass USMCA. Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring the trade deal to the floor for a vote, fearing (rightfully) that it will help President Trump.

As Real Clear Politics noted in their headline on November 28th, Impeachment Fight Leaves Voters Cold in Contested Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania:

(Pennsylvania may not technically be the Midwest, but they went for Trump in 2016 and their 20 Electoral Votes matter greatly. So, I’m including them.)

The Morning Call shows the same results in their poll. 51% of respondents supported the impeachment inquiry. However, when asked about removing President Trump from office, 49% were in favor, 48% were opposed. The bigger number to take from the poll (which, admittedly, has a MOE of +/- 6%) is that only 2% would consider changing their opinion.

This should not be taken as Pennsylvanians like President Trump. But, as NY Post columnist Salena Zito pointed out on NPR, “(It’s) Not that they like Trump any more – they still don’t like him. But they’re frustrated that the vote that they did give to the Democrats has turned out to be sort of opening up the road towards impeachment, and they don’t like that.”

Again, information that Democrats will have to consider now that they’ve decided that impeachment is their proudly displayed scarlet letter.

Ohio:

President Trump won Ohio with more votes than any Republican since 1988, winning 80 of 88 counties. Without Ohio, the road for any candidate to the White House is difficult. As CNN writes in their headline, Ohio voters voice dismay over Trump’s actions but aren’t convinced on impeachment.

The article is replete with phrases that get echoed across the Midwest:

“From the jump, it seems like people have been on him — it’s like they’re on a witch hunt”

“But it seems like kind of a witch hunt. They look for everything he does wrong, and it’s been like that from the beginning…. I don’t really like him that much, but I don’t really like any of the other ones, either.”

“I don’t know how to feel about it….because I’m not exactly sure what Ukraine knows. But Ukraine is an independent country. It’s no longer with Russia,” “So what’s all the hullabaloo about? … Let’s get some policy work done.”

A poll from CantonRep.com on October 31 showed 47% of voters support impeachment, and 43% percent oppose. Just two weeks earlier, Axios reported that voters they spoke to were “outraged” over impeachment. Among the quotes in there reporting was this, “9 of the 11 participants raised their hands to say impeachment is a distraction from the issues they care most about — things like wages and unemployment, border security, bringing troops home, and health care costs and access.”

The unemployment rate is 3.5%. The wall is still being fought by Democrats. President Trump wants to bring troops home from Syria and, seriously under reported, Trump unveiled transparency rules for healthcare providers; forcing them to provide pricing information to patients before they enter a hospital.

Polling may paint one picture in Ohio, but when the voters are spoken to, they provide a much different view.

Michigan:

President Trump won Michigan in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes, which means the state’s 16 Electoral Votes are available for both major parties. Across the state, according to polls and reporting, the sentiment towards Congress remains the same: Stop focusing on impeachment and focus on issues.

Mostly, I hear that they want us to work on issues like the prescription drug prices, trade, and the economy,” Kildee told Fox News on Dec. 5. “They do offer their thoughts on this and I think that’s positive, but mostly the American people want us to work on the issues that affect them at the kitchen table everyday.

Another Democratic Representative, Elissa Slotkin, who told a recent townhall that she favored the impeachment inquiry, was booed and heckled.

Axios took a look at head to head matchups between President Trump and leading Democratic presidential candidates in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. In the head to head between Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden, Trump lost again and again, until recently. In all three states over the last month, Trump beats Biden. From Alex Conant of Firehouse Strategies, “Democrats racing towards impeachment are at serious risk of leaving behind the voters they need to retake the White House next year.”

Impeachment doesn’t fare well in the polling. When you speak to the voters in must-win states, it does even worse.